The train jolted. All the seated people on one side of the carriage fell out of their seats into the standing crowd raising cries of alarm and multiple apologies. On the other side of the train, standing passengers fell into the laps of those seated.
Moments later, after everyone had righted themselves and regained their seats, the train jolted again. This time people fell again, but in the opposite direction to before. More people exclaimed and cursed, but at least the embarrassment and accidents were reciprocated and everyone tried to shrug off their rising alarm at the unusual movements of the train. Complaints at the train driver's skill were raised.
Suddenly, there was a screeching of brakes, the smell of burning rubber and the whole carriage of crowded passengers swayed, pressed by the forces of momentum and deceleration toward the back of the carriage. Those seated along the sides of the carriage were jammed one into the other as if they were playing a massive game of Corners. The crowd staggered and crushed those standing toward the back of the carriage, eliciting screams of pain. Someone fell and was trampled, but nobody could help them. Not with the deceleration forces still pressing them down and back. Those seated along the carriage walls at the end of the row were squashed harshly into the barrier.
The train lights flickered and the train's brakes continued screeching. The deceleration was anything but smooth, causing the entire carriage of screaming people to to sway and jolt backwards and forwards in the direction of travel as it staggered to a halt.
And as if things weren't bad enough, a few seconds after the entire train finally came to a stop and people had mostly stopped screaming, having started coordinating with each other to stand back up, the train lights flickered. And then died. Only the subway tunnel lights remained.
Briefly.
And then the subway tunnel lights also flickered.
People began screaming again.
And then all the lights went out, plunging everyone into a deep and startling darkness.
There was a momentary silence. And then people started screaming again until the nearby people with hurting ears found a way to shut those noisy people up. Phone torch lights slowly turned on and the air was filled with people apologizing as they picked themselves back up and righted themselves. In the darkness, it was possible to hear the shouts and calls of people who had found someone seriously injured.
The businessmen who had wrapped themselves around Liu Yufei unfolded themselves, allowing her to sit back up.
When the first jolt had happened, the two seated businessmen in front of her who had been calmly chatting in lowered voices were launched off their seats. One of them had ended up pinning her into the crowd where she ended up sliding down with him pinning her into the ground. His hands had accidentally touched and pressed on her breast, but he didn't seem to notice in his panicked surprise, trying to quickly get back up off her.
It was an accident anyway, and Liu Yufei knew it, and so didn't say anything much, just accepted his apology and being helped back up.
And then the train had jolted again, causing her to end up in the business man's lap, with one hand in the crotch of the neighbouring man. She had tried unsuccessfully to find her feet and get back up, but that was when the train had begun staggering unpredictably to a screeching halt, leaving her unable to fight momentum. The two men had also seemingly unconsciously also wrapped their arms around her and folded their bodies over her torso that had been sprawled over both their laps to protect her.
And to all their embarrassed shame, after they had been in the dark for a long moment, trying to regather their senses, Liu Yumei felt something hardening both beneath her backside and her hand. In a fluster, she tried to get back up and retrieve her hand, but then the two men suddenly pressed her back down onto their laps when they had been about to get back up like all the other people who had been standing around her.
"Shhh. Stay where you are for a moment," one of the businessmen hissed to her.
Liu Yumei was about to reply when she heard it.
From outside the train carriage.
A strange thumping and screeching sound. The sound of nails on glass or metal. Something leaping at and attacking the sides of the train.
They weren't the only ones to hear those strange external sounds.
"What's that?"
"What's that sound? What's outside?"
"Stop screaming. I'm the one being crushed beneath you. I might have a dislocated shoulder. What are you screaming about?"
"What if it's like zombies? What if the things outside eat people and are attracted to sound?"
That silenced a few people before rationality and logic prevailed.
"What zombies? There's no such thing."
But the speaker didn't seem to be completely convinced themselves. Their voice had been high pitched and thin.
"Are you alright?" asked a low voice into Liu Yufei's ear, making it tickle and want to rub it.
"You're poking into me," Liu Yufei hissed back in reply.
"Yes, well, your hand is in that rather sensitive spot," the man replied.
"Then let me get it out," Liu Yufei snapped back in surprise. "Let me get up."
"People are still falling all over the place trying to get back up. You're much safer where you are until there's space again," the man replied, grunting when someone fell on him again while trying to untangle themselves from other people and lost their balance.
"Then could you please tell your friend that I'm sitting on to stop poking me as well?"
"I'm sorry, Miss," came a voice from behind - the business man's friend on whose lap she was sitting in. "But maybe take it as a compliment. You are very pretty."
Liu Yufei released a huff of angry laughter.
"Could you both please let go of me so that I can get up?"
At her request, both men seemingly reluctantly released her, allowing her to first sit upright and then to carefully stand up. But because it was dark and she couldn't see and the train carriage was pretty crowded, the crowd ended up pushing her back into the laps of both businessmen again.
"Oof. Miss. You hand. You hand. Move your hand," whispered the strained voice of one of the men.
"Oh. Sorry," Liu Yufei quickly retrieved her hand but the surging crowd and swinging arms and bags of people starting to panic in the dark knocked her back down.
The men, to protect their faces and her, once more bent over her, protecting her and themselves with their bodies.
"Where's the train driver? He should have made an announcement by now," a voice grumbled from within the restless crowd of passengers.
The subway lights flickered back on, eliciting a cheer. Liu Yufei was allowed to sit back up.
Then the train lights flickered and the cheer that had begun died quickly. The train lights continued to flicker as if they were trying and failing to turn back on.
Something was slammed into the window outside, making everyone scream and jump.
For a brief moment, Liu Yufei glimpsed the bloodied face of a woman, twisted into a grotesque mask of pain. Nails screeched on the side of the train. And yet there was no sound of shouting or screaming from outside the train. The face pressed against the window was yanked away in the next moment, leaving only a bloody face smear on the window.
Liu Yufei's heart thumped and her mouth went dry. She was unable to speak for a long moment, only able to point and gesture at the window. The men took a glance and then pulled her back down where they could protect her with their bodies.
The overhead speaker crackled and buzzed. The train driver's voice came through intermittently but it was filled with crackling static and was incomprehensible.
The train lurched a few times and then stopped again. It started and stopped in this manner multiple times, making some people start to feel motion sick. The driver tried to speak over the loudspeaker again, but nobody understood any of it.
"Does this train driver even know how to drive?" people cursed.
The two businessmen renewed their grip on Liu Yufei again.
And then all the lights died once more.
This happened over and over again until eventually the passengers no longer gave any reaction when the lights came back on. After all, the train still wasn't moving. They hadn't moved very far in the last ten minutes at all.
Liu Yufei gave up trying to stand up. At least on somebody's lap, she didn't have to suffer the repeated indignity of falling over every few minutes and having to pick herself back up off the ground.
"Did anyone see that? There are people outside."
"Did someone force the train doors open on another carriage?"
"But there's no sound. We should be able to hear the people outside."
"Should we open our carriage doors as well?"
"What for? Will getting off here in this dark tunnel be any use? Can you get out of the tunnel?"
"Also, what if those people outside are dangerous? Look. There are bloody marks on the windows from when something slammed into it earlier."
"The train is trying to move."
"Fat lot of use it is. We aren't going anywherre."
"Maybe the train driver had a medical emergency and the person trying to drive us now doesn't know how to drive a train?"
"Or maybe like in the horror stories, zombies or a mad man is going through the carriages one by one, killing everybody."
"Shut up. "
"Hey, Miss, what's your name? I'm Zhang Chao," said the businessman on whose lap she was sitting.
"I'm Chen Dong," piped up the other businessman who had earlier protected her torso while her hand had been stuck between his legs.
"Liu Yufei."
"What do you do for work, Miss Liu? We're office workers."
"I'm - I'm also an office worker," Liu Yufei replied, shifting uncomfortably on Zhang Chao's lap. There was an uncomfortable pointy thing that was bigger than before now. She wriggled and turned to whisper to him. "Zhang Chao, do you think you could control yourself a bit more? It's really..."
"I'm sorry. Sorry," Zhang Chao immediately understood what she was trying to say. "Just... Try not to move too much?"
The train jolted another few metres again before stopping once more, the train lights turning on and off along with the movement.
Both men groaned.
"What? I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?" Liu Yufei asked.
"No. Just the... Nevermind," Chen Dong said in a low voice. "So long you're ok."
"I'll get up," Liu Yufei said, trying to wriggle out of their grasp.
"No, no. Stay here. You're safer here. Otherwise you'll be falling over and getting stepped on like everyone else."
Suddenly multiple bangs on the darkened window made everyone jump and a few people scream. Under the light of mobile phones, those pained, screaming looking and bloody faces were pressed up against the windows again, leaving bloody marks once more. Those who saw them screamed even louder and higher. Those who could only see the light reflecting off the windows shouted in confusion.
"What? What is it? What's going on? What did you see?"
The lights on the train suddenly turned on just as more thumps against both sides of the carriage rattled it. The train lurched once more. There was a whining and grinding sound and another incomprehensible message through the overhead speakers.
And then the train shot off and everyone clung to whatever they could find to try and stabilise themselves. Luckily for Yumei, she was already in the laps of the two businessmen, being protected by them.
The train sped off as if in panic, rattling on bumps and swaying dangerously around turns in the railway tracks. The smell of burning rubber and screeching accompanied any turns and whenever the train changed tracks.
They bypassed several underground stations to the confusion and fury of the passengers, until the train burst out of the subway system, out into the twilight. Most of the passengers cheered, but with a subdued and exhausted sound.
Slowly, slowly, the train stabilised and stopped accelerating.
It continued not to stop at any train station, making people curse and hammer at the doors, trying to force them open in order to force the train to come to an emergency stop.
"Don't - doors... Wait... Police... Ambulance... Safe... Station," were the only understandable words from the loud speaker but it was enough to calm most people down. After all, there were a lot of injured people.
A handful of people were still angrily blustering and complaining. Not unreasonably either.
"My kids are waiting for me to pick them up."
"My kids are all home alone right now. What if they burn the house down.?"
"Whose going to take responsibility for feeding my baby? I'm going to have to pay the babysitter double the fees at this time of the day."
"I have an emergency. My wife's sick at home. I have to bring her to the hospital."
"I have an emergency too. I'm about to do it in my pants. I need to go to the toilet."
"Think I'm going to throw up."
Static came from the overhead speakers, but after several repeats, people finally managed to figure out what station the train driver was saying they were going to stop at.
"Neevil Station."
"Why Neevil Station? Nobody gets on or off at that cemetery. They should just remove it as a stop."
"It used to be one of the more central stations but got usurped by Centre East Station."
"Will we have to go home from Neevil Station? Will we even be able to go home from there? Most public transport doesn't stop there anymore."
"Miss Liu, where do you live?" Chen Dong asked.
"We live in Aurora Gardens," Zhang Chao said, "in the same building."
Oh. One of the inner city suburbs. These guys were likely not just mere office workers. They were probably managers or directors or something. Or from rich families to be able to afford to live in one of the most affluent of the inner city suburbs.
"Flagrant Rock," Liu Yufei replied.
"Whoa. That's far."
Flagrant Rock was one of the outer city suburbs. It was the second last stop on the Upper Mountain Line. Liu Yufei was meant to get off at Central East Station and change lines. Now from Neevil Station, there was a possibility of her still catching the right train, but only one in five trains stopped at this station. She didn't know how long she was going to have to wait for her train to come.
The train slowed down even more and all along the train station platform, police, paramedics and other official looking people could be seen. There were even a few people that looked to be soldiers in uniform spread out there.
Despite slowing down, the train screeched to a halt and the door chimed open.
But before anybody could get out, policemen and soldiers blocked the doorways, amidst the roars of passenger protests.
"Quiet down!" the policeman shouted, blowing his whistle.
He wasn't the only one. All up and down the train, police were blowing their whistles to cut through the cacophony and quiet the irate and frightened passengers.
Finally, people reluctantly stopped talking and pushing enough for the policeman and soldier to give instructions.
They wanted everyone to file off in an orderly manner and they would be directed to a waiting room where their statements would be quickly taken. While they had been underground, something had happened in the city, requiring it to come under military law during this period of emergency. Everyone was instructed to cooperate or be imprisoned in order to be dealt with later. Those who were injured would be seen to and the seriously injured would be taken to hospital. A few suburbs were currently out of reach and people who lived in or near those areas would be unable to return home. Emergency accommodation for those people was in the process of being organised. Affected people would be informed while they were giving their statements.
"If you can't return home, I'll take you in," Chen Dong said to Liu Yufei. "I live with my mother. It'd be more comfortable than the emergency accommodations and once we learn what type of emergency it is, it might be safer to stay with someone who can protect you. Do you live alone?"
Liu Yufei didn't manage to answer him because people began talking and shouting once more. The crowd initially surged but then under the shouts of the soldiers and policemen outside calmed down enough to get off the train in a orderly manner. Most of the passengers had gotten off, except for a few severely injured or sick people. As soon as they could, paramedics swarmed onto the train, while Liu Yufei, protected by the two businessmen managed to shuffle off the train.
Outside, Liu Yufei overhead a soldier talking on his radio about the earthquake.
So the train had been stopped due to an earthquake?
No where were those strange silent and bloodied people in the subway tunnels mentioned in the conversations she heard. The trio were briefly questioned by a paramedic to see if they were injured. When they shook their heads, they were led toward a waiting area where people were let through, several at a time. The two men protected Liu Yufei from the crowd.
It had been such a long day, waking up before the crack of dawn and dealing with problems at work and now this. Liu Yufei was exhausted. She couldn't help nodding off despite standing in the line. Two arms wrapped around her, allowing her to lean against the businessmen.
"I'm sorry," Liu Yufei lifted her sleepy head, struggling to stay awake.
"It's alright. It'll be a while before it's our turn. You can relax for a bit."
The men guided her whenever they needed to shuffle forwards in the line. Eventually, the three were allowed through together.
There, they learned that the city had suffered from an earthquake that had caused a section of the city to sink and another section to crack open. Thankfully, the sinkhole occured in a sports field and only the changerooms of the oval were affected. The area that had cracked open had been by the riverside, where the neighbouring park had been lost, but most buildings other than suffering minor damage, were unaffected. The largest accident was actually to their train underground.
All train lines had been ceased and subways evacuated. It was uncertain whether it was safe underground anymore.
The listening policeman and soldier woman who was listening to their story nodded and dutifully noted down about what they had seen of the strange and bloody people in the subway tunnels. They didn't seem surprised, likely already having heard about it from other passengers earlier.
When the three finished giving their statements, they were asked where they lived.
Upon hearing Liu Yufei came from Flagrant Rock, they frowned.
"Massel isn't very safe at the moment. There's unrest, rioting and looting over there at the moment. It's best if you find somewhere else to stay for tonight. Is there anywhere else you can stay?"
The only way to Flagrant Rock from where they were in the city was through the suburb of Massel, unless a detour of more than half an hour was taken. But the soldier woman explained that the entire region of suburbs in that area weren't very safe at present. Taking advantage of the earthquake and unease, opportunists and gangs had come out in force. They weren't very sure of what was going on, but there was news that there were people with illegal guns, bats and knives going around burgling or fighting.
Liu Yufei sighed.
"She can stay with my mother and me in our apartment," Chen Dong said. "We have a spare bedroom. And since Zhang Chao and I live in the same apartment building, we can take care of her and protect her."
"Alright," the policeman nodded, making a few notes. "Miss Liu, what would you like to do? If you don't want to stay with Chen Dong, we can arrange for you to share a hotel room with one of the other passengers."
"I think I'd prefer staying..."
A fight amongst passengers nearby broke out, spreading into a brawl by waiting passengers when they heard that they would have to share hotel rooms with strangers during the emergency accommodation.
"You three had better get going," the soldier woman told them. "Miss Liu, if you know and trust these gentlemen, you'd be better off going with them. At least they can protect you if anything happens. Tomorrow, don't go out. Stay home. Wait for the official city announcement. You'll all receive a message to your mobile phones. Don't get caught up in all this."
"Right," the men agreed and ushered Liu Yufei away. She didn't resist. She didn't want to stay anywhere near where the violence was happening.
"The public transport has all ceased, except for the busses taking people to certain major train stations," Zhang Chao rubbed his nose. "We'll have to walk home."
"From here, it should only be twenty minutes or so," Chen Dong agreed. "Will you be alright with that, Miss Liu?"
"Yes. Thank you," Liu Yufei agreed, needing to walk with small hops and skips to keep up with the mens' long legged brisk pace. It took a while for either man to notice and they noticeably slowed down to accommodate for her shorter legs, allowing her to heave a sigh of relief.
There were soldiers and police on the streets who stopped them every now and then to warn them to hurry home or to question why they were still out on the streets. Or to warn them to stay home during this time of unrest.
Eventually, they made it back to the apartment building, only to discover that the electricity was out in their block. There were maintenance workers hurrying to try and get it fixed at a corner of the street, but when they got to the electronic doors of the building, they could only wait for a security guard to open the doors for them after confirming who the two men were and seeing Liu Yufei's ID. And then, they looked up at the daunting stair climb.
"Think of it as incidental exercise," Liu Yufei told herself, taking a deep breath.
"It's only twenty-three floors," Zhang Chao said.
"Thirty-one," Chen Dong corrected.
"You guys can take a break in my apartment if you're too tired by then," Zhang Chao offered. "Or stay over. You can give Aunty a call to inform her, bro."
"I've messaged her already," Chen Dong said, starting up the stairs. "She has dinner waiting for all of us."
"Then I should make the effort," Zhang Chao sighed, going up the stairs two steps at a time.
Liu Yufei was left behind, feeling her muscles going tight and start to burn after three floors. The men waited for her at every landing, before going ahead again. After a while, they considerately went much more slowly at her pace, chatting over her head while she huffed and puffed with each step.
It seemed that these men regularly worked out. Seven stories up and they were only slightly out of breath, compared to her.
Liu Yufei listened to them chat about work and colleagues and the soccer game this weekend. She focussed on getting up one flight of stairs at a time, catching her breath and allowing her shaky legs a brief rest, before tackling the next flight.
"Bro, I don't think she's going to make it up to your floor at this rate."
"Yeah. Then take her to your place. I'll go upstairs first and bring the food down for you both. I'll get some of my mother's spare clothes for her to change into after a shower as well."
Chen Dong loped up the stairs, making them look easy. Liu Yufei held onto the rail with trembling hands, trying to haul herself up with each step on equally trembling legs.
"Don't worry. Take your time," Zhang Chao reassured her while he watched her from the next landing up. "Chen Dong and I often have competitions and races against each other on these staircases, so we're used to it. We're fitness freaks. Don't mind us. You just take your time. Don't rush."
By the time she reached the twenty-third floor where Zhang Chao's apartment was, Liu Yufei's vision was blurry, her eyes stung with sweat and she could barely walk anymore. Zhang Chao assisted her through the fire door, half carrying her down the corridor to his apartment.
"Well done, you made it," he soothed. "Just hang on a little longer. We're almost there. Here we are." He unlocked his front door and helped her in to sit on his sofa. "Here. Have a seat. Let me clean up the spare bedroom and get you a towel and toiletries."
It felt like just seconds later that Liu Yufei was being shaken awake to be fed a few mouthfuls, given a rehydrating drink, forced to stretch, given a painful massage that made her cry and then ushered into the shower with a pile of clean clothes.
It was immense relief when she felt the two men tuck her into the bed of the spare bedroom and tiptoe out, quietly closing the door behind her.